• by Ross Fadner , December 5, 2003

Two of the video game industry's largest Web players Thursday announced an alliance that will dominate the field of online video game content.

IGN Entertainment, whose IGN.com is one of the most popular gaming and entertainment destinations for young adult males, and GameSpy Industries, an entertainment and technology company serving the same crowd as well as game developers, said they signed a definitive merger agreement that effectively makes them the Web's largest network of content sites for gamers.

With a combined 673 million page views and 22 million unduplicated unique visitors per month, according to comScore NetScore data, the alliance will dwarf the next closest competitor, CNET's GameSpot. Collectively, they now rank first in unduplicated U.S. audience with both comScore Media Metrix and Nielsen/NetRatings in the gaming information category.

Aside from mass, the deal represents a merger of complementary assets.

"GameSpy is a market leader with the PC game audience, game downloads, and online gaming technology. IGN is the market leader with the console game audience and community services such as message boards," noted Mark Jung, CEO and president of IGN, adding, "Both companies have very strong subscription acquisition retention programs."

The combined premium-content paid-subscription base of both companies is 194,000, with an additional 26 million registered users.

General consumer advertisers, as well as gaming and technology advertisers, are likely to have a keen interest in the merger, which brings together the world's largest concentration of 18-34 year old males. No, they're not watching television. They're online learning about their favorite video games. And now they'll have even more content to choose from, as the two editorial teams together generate more than 4,400 pieces of original gaming content each month.

"For game publishers and advertisers, it creates a platform with the widest reach and the deepest set of marketing tools to target gamers and young men in general," asserted Mark Surfas, founder and chairman of GameSpy.

Interestingly, IGN and GameSpy won't combine brands into a single entity. Both Jung and Surfas cite distinct audiences and strong brand loyalty as their reasons. "Combining brands is a bad idea," said Jung. "The Internet is all about differentiation and choice," adding that to combine brands would be an affront to user loyalty.